Archive for 2013

When I first heard about the Adobe Creative Suite’s move to the cloud, I thought it was a terrible idea, especially when the price was set at $50 per month. Now that some time has passed, and I’ve had a chance to work with it first hand, I can see the advantages it brings.

For starters, there are no longer separate Mac OS X and Windows licenses, and it’s possible to activate the software on two computers at a time. This makes it much easier to switch between the two platforms. This is something they should have done years ago.

The pricing isn’t quite as bad as it seems. There is a single-app plan, which is $20 per month ($10 per month for upgrading from CS6 until the end of August). Doing the math, without upgrade pricing, it takes about two-and-a-half years before hitting the $600 price-point of Photoshop CS6 alone. In the long term, this plan does cost less, assuming one were to buy the version upgrades each year.

Which brings us to a disadvantage.

Photoshop is no longer a product, but a service. It’s no longer possible to pay once and run the same program on the same old computer for 5+ years.

I still can’t help but feel at least a little concerned. What if everything I installed on my computer became subscription-based? Microsoft already seems to be heading in this direction with Office 365. What if I had to subscribe to use Manga Studio or Paint Tool Sai? I’d certainly have to put more effort into budgeting each month, instead of choosing to buy things when I need them.

I’ve been using Manga Studio EX4 for my comic pages. Pages and layouts are more manageable in Manga Studio than they tend to be in Paint Tool Sai or Photoshop; however, the coloring tools could be a lot better. Most users I’ve spoken to tend to use Manga Studio to create their line art, and then export the page for coloring in another program.

Manga Studio 5 was released recently (at the end of last year), and it attempts to fix issues with coloring by adding in more standard coloring tools, as well as more detailed brush settings. Most of the features from EX4 are still here, though moved about in the switch to a new UI. The only two major features that appear to be missing are story files, and the ability to draw pages at greater than 600 DPI.

It’s easy to get confused, even if you’ve used previous versions of Manga Studio, since panel rulers are now hidden under the Figure drawing tool, and perspective rulers have been moved under the Layers menu.